


Entangled

by Dreamweaver (MoonstalkerZ)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Badass Katsuki Yuuri, Language Barrier, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-10-25 11:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17724056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonstalkerZ/pseuds/Dreamweaver
Summary: Katsuki Yuuri did not join the military to fight pirates, yet here he is, on the edges of known space with the crew of the OFS Lambiel.  He did not expect for the black hole to be anything but scenery.Or for a trip through a black hole to be survivable.Yet what lies beyond the black hole is even more surprising...





	1. Chapter 1

The ships of the Orion Federation’s fleet closed in on the pirate base, their daggerlike prows all pointed at the space station’s heart.  The _Oda_ , commanded by Captain Okukawa, led the charge, its silent bulk pressing forward relentlessly.

On the station, alarms were blaring.  Fighters streamed out of the base, but they were merely gnats biting at the larger ships.

A small transport darted out of the station’s hangar.  The black hole the station was hidden behind now limited the pirates’ avenues of escape.  The transport shot toward what it hoped was a hole in the Federation blockade. One of the Federation ships responded.  Turrets turned and hit the transport with ion cannon blasts. The sublight engines flickered out, disabled. The ship continued on its trajectory; it would be picked up later, its occupants arrested.

The _Lambiel_ was easily the smallest ship in the flotilla, but it had a special mission to complete.  It shot through the clouds of fighters towards the station’s hangar. Once inside, it disgorged teams of marines.

The station’s defenses went down, defeated by both the ships in space and the marines on the station.  The remains of fighters tumbled uncontrollably. Numerous transports drifted aimlessly, engines dark.

These pirates would never raid shipments of medical supplies again.

Yuuri sighed, then rewound the simulation and played it again.

“I thought you had this memorized after the first seven times, Helmsman,” Celestino Cialdini, captain of the _Lambiel_ , said over his shoulder.

Yuuri guiltily swiped the simulation off his screen, then felt guilty for feeling guilty.  “Can’t be too prepared,” he muttered, not looking at his captain.

Celestino just huffed a little.  They had had this conversation before.  They didn’t need to have it again. “Should I order you to swab the decks or something?  Just to get it off your mind for bit?”

“I think the cleaning bots would get offended if you did that,” said Phichit.  The communications officer was at his own console, but was looking at it with only half an eye.

“Can confirm,” put in Isabella, their head engineer.  “They’re super touchy. The XO told me one of them hissed at her when she used a shower it had just cleaned.”

Yuuri raised an eyebrow.  That sounded like one of Yuuko’s jokes, but he wasn’t about to call the _Lambiel_ ’s executive officer a liar.

“That never happened,” said weapons officer Seung-gil, who evidently had no such reservations.

Isabella leaned back and crossed her arms.  “Oh, you were there? Never thought of you as a peeping tom.”  She was smiling, but it was a tense smile.

Seung-gil sighed deeply.  “I _meant_ that it seems unlikely, but you knew that, of course.” 

As the bridge crew continued to banter, Yuuri looked back to his console.  They still had enough time before arrival that he could run a few more simulations….

“I hope you’re not scared of ghosts,” said Phichit, apropos of nothing.

Yuuri turned and gave him a flat stare.  Phichit was not affected in the slightest.

Isabella sighed.  “All right, get your ghost story out while you still can.”

Phichit twirled in his chair.  “It’s not just a ghost story, it’s valuable mission intelligence.”

Celestino chuckled from the captain’s chair.  His feet were propped up on his console, which was not, strictly speaking, professional, but he generally never was, unless he had to be.  A professional Captain Cialdini was terrifying. “Go ahead, share with the class,” Celestino said, waving a hand. “We have time.”

“Well.”  Phichit leaned forward, grinning widely.  “Hundreds of years ago, people began disappearing from the planet of Urluk.  There was never any blood, no signs of any struggle. People just stopped coming into work one day.  It began quietly, a person here, a person there...then entire families began to disappear. There was a massive effort to find them, but no one made any headway.

“Years later, long after everyone had finally given up, scouts came across an abandoned space station that wasn’t on any maps.  When they boarded, you know what they found?”

Phichit was looking expectant, so Yuuri said, “The remains of the missing people?”

Phichit’s mouth opened and closed several times.  “You’re supposed to just say ‘what,” not actually guess!”

“You shouldn’t have given me the opportunity then,” Yuuri said lightly.

Phichit sighed dramatically.  “Fine. You were close! But -”  He inched forward so that he was sitting on the edge of his seat.  “In the station, they found a fully functioning city - shops, schools, parks, all that good stuff.  Enough homes for tens of thousands of people! But you know what they didn’t find?” Yuuri opened his mouth, but Phichit beat him to the punch.  “They didn’t find any _people_.  Just their old momentos...of their life on Urluk.”

“And that’s the station we’re going to?” Yuuri put in.

“That’s the station we’re going to!” Phichit repeated, with relish.

There was a pause, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming.  “There are no ghosts in that story,” said Seung-gil, who Yuuri had thought wasn’t listening.

Phichit held up his thumb and rolled his eyes, still smiling.  A transparent image overlayed him, projected by Yuuri’s translation implant onto his retina, of Phichit extending his middle finger at Seung-gil, but Yuuri had known Phichit long enough to not need the translation.  “There are totally ghosts! It’s a literal ghost town!”

“They just left the station,” said Seung-gil.

“And left all their stuff behind?”  Seung-gil shrugged, and Phichit scoffed.  “No, there was obviously some sort of subspace ripple that shifted them to a dimension slightly adjacent to our own!  They can’t leave because they can’t touch anything!”

Isabella had started giggling.  “Phichit, what… Where do you get this stuff?

“ _Phase Shift_ ,” said Yuuri.  “It came out about ten years ago, I think.”

Phichit groaned.  “Yuuri, you traitor!”  He clasped a hand to his heart and draped himself over the back of his chair.

“I’m just a servant of the truth,” Yuuri intoned solemnly, though he couldn’t prevent the corners of his mouth twitching up.

“Should I call for a medic?” Celestino drawled.

“Naw, I’m good.”  Phichit shot back up again.  “Anyway, I just got the subspace ripple thing from the movie, the missing people part is true!  I heard about it before we left Urluk.”

“Well, if your goal was to scare us, you’ve failed miserably,” said Seung-gil.

“Nonsense!  My goal was to lighten the mood, and I’ve succeeded admirably!”

He had, Yuuri thought as he looked around.  Isabella and Celestino were smiling, and even Seung-gil looked more relaxed.  As for himself…

He swiped back to the simulation and exited the program completely.  No need for that.

They filled the time until arrival with light conversation.  Phichit and Isabella debated the relative merits of two eyeliner brands; Yuuri told the story of the video Yuuko’s triplets had uploaded without his knowledge; Seung-gil even volunteered a rather lengthy anecdote about his dog.  As the arrival grew nearer, Yuuri couldn’t help but think that they were all talking about those blissful years before the war had begun. He imagined Celestino, who was mostly silent but smiled wistfully, was perhaps thinking the same thing.

All too soon, an alarm beeped.  The crew broke off their conversation and turned back to their consoles.

Celestino gave orders quietly.  The bridge crew was prepared; the gunners were prepared; Yuuko, in the secondary command center, was prepared.  Yuuri was prepared.

He let out a breath.  “Reversion in five, four, three, two….”

Yuuri disengaged the FTL drive, and the blinding whiteness of faster-than-light travel coalesced into individual stars on the viewport.  Before them, barely visible against the blackness of space, was the pirates’ space station, spinning almost imperceptibly on its axis. To their left was the _Oda_ , a splash of white against the darkness.  The other ships in the flotilla were too small and too far away to be seen by the naked eye, but Yuuri could see them marked in green on the HUD, forming a sphere around the station.

And to their right, the maw of emptiness that was the black hole.

Yuuri wanted to stare at it, at the glowing accretion disc that surrounded it.  He had been fascinated with black holes for as long as he could remember; he might have been an astrophysicist if the Orion Federation hadn’t needed so many warm bodies to fight off the Joshan Empire.  Even now he devoured articles about them in scientific journals.

“The station looks like a standard prefab,” said Isabella.  “The scans will come back any second now....” She paused, then said, “Katsuki, I’m sending you the location of the hangar bay.”

A red wireframe model of the station traced itself over the HUD, a small square on the rim flashing.  “Received,” said Yuuri.

“Bring us in at 230 M, Helmsman,” said Celestino behind him. 

“They’ve already noticed us,” reported Phichit.  “I’m intercepting a lot of comm traffic.”

“Make that 260 M,” said Celestino, and Yuuri nudged the ship’s speed a bit higher.  It would be more difficult to slow down enough to land at this speed, but it was still doable.

On the HUD, small red dots began to emerge from the hangar and peeled off in three directions.  “Fighters coming in from the station, ETA one minute,” said Seung-gil.

One minute was an eternity at this speed.  “Captain, evasive maneuvers?” asked Yuuri.

“On my mark,” said Celestino.  “What kind of fighters are these?”

“Modified Salchow A-38s,” said Seung-gil.  “A favorite of pirates, designed to take on ships larger than themselves.”

Celestino hummed in acknowledgement.  “Shields up, open fire.” A faint blue sheen shimmered faintly over the surface of the _Lambiel_ ; shots streaked out from their four turrets and forward guns.  “Katsuki, begin evasive maneuvers.”

Celestino’s timing was perfect.  Even as Yuuri brought them into a shallow dive, an opening salvo passed harmlessly above them, though a few stray shots peppered their shields.  One of the tiny red dots disappeared, the fighter destroyed, but the others broke formation in evasive maneuvers of their own.

Soon enough the fighters swarmed around them.  The model of the ship on the HUD flashed red on its prow; a direct hit had gotten through their shields.  Yuuri yanked the ship hard to starboard. A fighter shot across the viewport, surprised by Yuuri’s sudden maneuver.  A shot from the _Lambiel_ ’s forward guns caught it directly in the cockpit.  Vented atmosphere ignited briefly before sputtering out.  Yuuri flew on, and the remains of the ship disappeared behind them.

Yuuri juked and swerved through the cloud of fighters that pecked at their shields, but never faltered from his course.  Another red dot blinked out on the HUD, a victim of the _Lambiel_ ’s turrets.

The hangar grew larger on the viewport.  Yuuri glanced at the rangefinder and hit the forward thrusters.  The _Lambiel_ slowed, but not enough.  A glance at the ship’s power levels had him wincing.  “I need more power to slow down enough to land.”

“Lee, bring shields to 75 percent, weapons to 50.”

Isabella jerked in her seat.  “The fighters -”

“Our main goal is delivery, not the fighters,” said Celestino.  “We can worry about them later.”

Seung-gil had already brought the shields and weapons down.  There was a surge in power, and Yuuri used it to hit the forward thrusters, hard. 

The ship was still fighting him.  What -

The model of the ship was flashing red.

The _forward thrusters_ were flashing red.

Yuuri swore.  “They’re aiming for the forward thrusters!”

“Shields to 100!” Celestino barked.  “Weapons to 25!”

It was too late.  The forward thrusters were down, and the hangar was fast approaching.

Yuuri hit the other thrusters in quick succession.  The ship swung around, and careened toward the hangar, aft-first.

The rear thrusters were not enough.  Collision in five, four, three -

Yuuri hit the sublight drive, and the entire ship shuddered.  They were in the hangar now, and blue pseudo-flame scorched the walls, surrounded them.  Yuuri nudged at it carefully, carefully -

The ship eased to a stop, and Yuuri disengaged the sublight drive.  The ship settled into its automated landing sequence, and Yuuri let his breath whoosh out.

The bridge crew sat in silence for a moment, before Phichit let out an emphatic, “Fuck.”

Suddenly they were giggling.  “All right, we’re alive,” said Celestino through a laugh.  “Now we need to deliver our package.” The crew sobered, and Celestino continued, “Yang, what’re conditions in the hangar?”

“That sublight drive blast destroyed the forcefield, the atmosphere’s venting into space,” said Isabella.  “External temperature is...survivable, in an exosuit.”

“Chulanont, advise Cao Bin of the situation and tell him to get moving.”

“Roger that,” said Phichit, who was still grinning.

Yuuri leaned back in his seat and flexed his hands.  He was not needed at the moment, and he welcomed the reprieve.

He took the opportunity look around the hangar.  The video feed of the aft showed that the sublight drive had blown out the back wall of the hangar, and had left a path of destruction deep into the station.  Numerous blast doors had closed, preventing the loss of much of the station’s atmosphere, but the damage was too sudden and too massive to fully mitigate.

To their sides, the walls of the hangar were charred and half melted.  There was a twisted mass of metal to starboard that probably used to be a ship of some sort; no one was going to use it to escape now.

And in the viewport, the hangar opened up onto the black hole.  The glow of the accretion disc was nowhere to be seen.

They were close.  They were very, very close.

He glanced over at Isabella; she was staring at it too.  “It’s a weird view,” she said. Yuuri just nodded, unable to vocalize what he was feeling.

In the aft video feed he watched the marines disembark from the _Lambiel_ .  They moved in small groups; Yuuri could see Cao Bin at the head of one group, pointing at the hole the _Lambiel_ had made.  He wondered if they would use that as a point of entry -

Yuuri was thrown forward, his chest hitting his console and knocking the breath out of him.  He pushed himself back up with a cough.

A siren was wailing, and his crewmates were groaning with pain.  On the model of the ship, the entire aft was flashing red -

“An explosion,” Isabella was saying.  “Source unknown - fuck, the sublight drive’s down -”

Celestino picked himself up off the floor.  “Find that source!”

Seung-gil pounded his console with his fist.  “There’s no enemies on sensors - maybe a bomb -”

“Joshanti fleet incoming,” Phichit broke in. He was staring at his console intently.  “One Behemoth class, four Leviathan class, twelve Goliath class -”

“What are Imperials doing here?” Seung-gil growled.

“I don’t -” Phichit waved his hands uselessly. 

Comprehension dawned.  “This isn’t a pirate base, it’s a Joshanti base,” Yuuri breathed.

“The whole damn thing was a trap!” said Isabella.

“Chulanont, contact Cao Bin,” Celestino said.

Yuuri looked at the aft camera.  Bodies littered the floor, black and smoking.

“I can’t bring him up,” Phichit said, after a moment.

Celestino’s head fell, then rose, his face hard.  “Request orders from Captain Okukawa.”

Phichit scanned the messages on his console.  “She’s ordered a full retreat.”

“But we’re grounded,” said Yuuri.

“What ship is closest -”  Celestino leaned over his console.  “Request for the _Kwan_ to tractor us in -”

The world turned upside down.  Yuuri’s back hit the ceiling and his head slammed painfully against the metal.  The world shifted again, and he fell. He landed on his console, its sharp edges digging into the soft flesh of his stomach.  He rolled off and hit the floor.

“Damage report,” Celestino gasped, still on the floor.

Isabella pulled herself up to her console.  “Um - minor damage to the hull.”

“Then what…” Celestino began.

“The station’s been hit,” said Phichit.  His face was ashen. “The _Lipinski_ crashed into it.”

Yuuri ignored the throbbing in his head and pulled up the area map on his console.  The other ships in the flotilla were transmitting the locations of the enemy ships, but one thing the _Lambiel_ ’s own navigation system made clear.

“The station’s heading for the black hole,” Yuuri said, and felt cold dread seep into his chest.

“Katsuki, get us out of here,” ordered Celestino.

Not possible, Yuuri wanted to say, but started the automated takeoff sequence anyway.  It still worked, at least, but as he eased them out of the hangar, he saw his worst fears realized. 

The station itself was blocking their escape, too big to maneuver around without the sublight drive.

Yuuri stifled a cry, and tears leaked out of his eyes.  “We’ve already passed the event horizon.”

There was a long moment of silence.  Celestino kicked his console, but said nothing.

Phichit shook his head.  “I’ll try to send a message at least -”

“Can’t, the black hole will swallow it up,” said Yuuri, his voice breaking.

Phichit’s head drooped.  “Right. Of course.”

Celestino was pacing behind them, as if he could somehow come up with a plan to defeat the laws of physics.  Unshed tears shimmered in Seung-gil’s eyes.

Isabella was breathing hard.  “At this speed - we’ll be spaghettified in - less than a minute -”

Phichit laughed brokenly.  “That is _such_ a stupid word -”

Spaghettification.  Yuuri thought back to all those scientific articles he had read, how anything entering a black hole would be stretched into a filament.  A painful death. He felt very, very cold.

But he also remembered those other scientific articles, the ones about Einstein-Rosen bridges that might be found at the center of black holes.  But there were too many possible solutions to reasonably test -

But right now he had nothing to lose.

Maybe five seconds had passed.  With the tap of a few keys, the navigation computer calculated the location of the center of the black hole.  Was this the precise vector they needed? He didn’t know.

He scowled.  No, no, no, something was _wrong_ .  He made tiny adjustments with the thrusters, this way and that, until the black hole sang at him _here here here_ -

Metal groaned and screeched.  Behind them, the wreck of the station.  To their front, the looming mass of the black hole.

The captain was shouting behind him. “Katsuki, what-”

Yuuri engaged the FTL drive.


	2. Chapter 2

“-the hell are you doing -”

Captain Cialdini broke off.  A starfield filled the viewport, the black hole gone.  The station was also gone, as was any evidence that there had been a battle at all - only their own small ship remained floating in the void.

Celestino gulped in a breath.  “Enemies on sensors?”

“None,” said Seung-gil.

“Damage report?”

“Sublight drive’s still down,” said Isabella.  “So’s the FTL drive. Aft and forward thrusters are nonfunctional.”  She let out a hissing breath. “Main generator and three auxiliaries are down.  We’re running on two auxiliary generators.”

“Forward weapons are functional,” said Seung-gil, not sounding enthused.

Celestino let out a long, shuddery breath.  “Katsuki, where are we?”

Yuuri scanned the map, and his brow furrowed.  The map was completely blank, save for their ship and an error message at the top of the screen.  He tapped the error message. The ship’s sensors couldn’t identify any of the nearest stars. Not one out of two thousand.  The ship’s navigation system swept its search further out. Twenty thousand - forty thousand - none of which were in the ship’s database.

“Katsuki?”

The system had searched one hundred sixty thousand of the nearest stars, and knew none of them.  “Um - the map’s…no good, sir.”

Celestino strode to his side.  “Navigation’s down?”

“No, I mean -”  He gestured at his screen.  “We’re not on the map anymore.”

Celestino leaned over his shoulder.  He frowned, tapped at the interface. The computer showed him four hundred thousand unknown stars.  He let out an irritated snort and leaned back. “Right then. What do the sensors say?”

Yuuri was already perusing the sensor data.  “There’s a system nearby - or would be nearby, if we still had functional drives.  A K-type main sequence star, six planets…” He ran a quick search, and sighed. “It doesn’t match anything in the database.”

Celestino rubbed a hand over his face.  “Can we access any data channels?”

“None,” said Phichit.

“You mean communications are down, or there’s nothing to receive?”

“Comms work fine, there’s just nothing there.”

Celestino was silent for a long moment.  “Right,” he said finally. “Yang, what do we need to get any of the drives operational?”

“We can get sublight up again in a few days, but the FTL…”  She scowled, then sighed. “Parts of it are fried that we don’t have the facilities to repair.  We’d have to visit a Navy shipyard.”

“Then have your team get the sublight drive up again.  Chulanont, double-check all of the comm channels, even the nonstandard ones.   Katsuki, how much can we maneuver with just the port and starboard thrusters?”

“Enough to avoid smaller obstacles,” said Yuuri.  “At our current speed, I’d need up to three hours’ notice to avoid a collision with larger objects.”

“Then map out our current trajectory, I don’t want to run into anything unexpected.”

Yuuri nodded, and the the crew fell to work.  The adrenaline was wearing off, and he leaned back, exhausted.

Celestino had come up beside him.  “I don’t know how the hell you managed that,” he said quietly, “but you saved the lives of everyone on this ship.  I hope you understand the magnitude of what you’ve done.”

Yuuri looked up at his captain, glad he had decided not to make a scene of things.  “Thank you, sir.”

“No, thank  _ you _ .”  Celestino smiled and bobbed his head in something of a bow.

Yuuri swallowed and nodded.  Celestino walked off, allowing him some space.

Yuuri stared out the viewport.  He didn’t know how the hell he had managed that either.

~*~

It was several hours before Phichit found anything resembling a data stream.  His posture had grown increasingly hunched over time, so when he suddenly straightened the entire bridge crew came to attention.

Phichit was mouthing something to himself, and Celestino seemed to be barely restraining himself from hovering over his shoulder.  

Phichit was frowning now, and let out a frustrated breath.  “Captain,” he said quietly, and Celestino was at his side in an instant.

The two men spoke in voices too low to be heard, though the crew strained their ears.  Celestino would listen to something, frown, shake his head, then ask a question. Phichit would shake his head in response.

Finally Celestino straightened.  “Crew, I’m sending each of you an audio file,” he said.  “I need to know if anyone recognizes the language being spoken.”

For the past several hours, Yuuri had had little to do besides make minor course corrections and castigate himself for managing to fuck up so badly that they weren’t even on the map anymore.  Now he scrambled at the chance to finally do something useful. He opened the file, and a harsh male voice sounded in his ear, speaking foreign words he didn’t understand. He played the file again, but it made no more sense the second time around.  “My implant’s not translating it,” he said.

There was a chorus of assent around him.  “Why isn’t the translation software working?” asked Isabella.

“I-  I don’t...”  Phichit trailed off helplessly.

A murmur of disbelief swept the bridge.  There was no language the implant couldn’t translate, even languages with less than a hundred speakers.  An unknown language was unthinkable. 

Yuuri stared out at the empty expanse of space and wondered who - or what - would speak such  a language.

Celestino frowned.  “Send the file to every member of the crew, Chulanont.  If anyone on this tub can understand this, I need them up here.”

The bridge crew waited in anxious silence, sending each other glances that spoke volumes, until Phichit shook his head.  “Everyone’s reported in, no one recognizes it.”

Celestino’s lips twisted into a frown for a moment.  He waved a hand. “Well, it’s a small ship.”

More glances.  No one said the word “aliens,” but it wasn’t needed.  They were, after all, very far from home.

Celestino’s lips thinned.  “Chulanont, when did we receive this message?”

“Soon after we arrived.  It was on a weird channel, in a weird format, so it took time to even figure out it was anything other than random noise.”

“Then they’ll be expecting a reply.”  Celestino paced back and forth a few times.  “Yang, can we modify the language software to translate a message  _ before _ we send it?”

“Instead of it getting translated on receipt?”  Isabella tapped at her console. “We’ve only got one programmer on board, and I don’t know that the program’s in a programming language he knows.”

“Well, ask him then!”  Celestino breathed deeply and seemed to calm himself.  He sat down at his console. “I’ll be composing a message, and I want it sent out in Kharibol, Biya, Han, Isgles, and, uh, Enpanya.”

Isabella was still tapping away.  “Understood.”

Yuuri looked at his hands on the ship’s controls, feeling useless.  None of those were languages he knew. For the first time, he wished he had learned another language in his youth.  It hadn’t seemed relevant, growing up in a small town with the promise of an implant when he came of age.

And there he went again, berating himself for not forseeing something unforseeable.  Even if he knew the tracks his mind ran on, it was still hard to get off of them.

On the viewport the stars twisted, and suddenly a massive starship hung in space beside them.  A swarm of smaller frigates surrounded it. Alarms went off on the bridge, indicating they were being targeted.  Seung-gil brought up the shields reflexively, though they wouldn’t do much against that many guns.

“Incoming message,” Phichit shouted.  The voice from the original message thundered over the bridge.

“Yang, is the program ready yet?” Celestino shouted.

“He’s barely even started!” Isabella shouted back.

Celestino growled, and hit something on his console far more force than was necessary.  “Chulanont, transmit this: This is Captain Celestino Cialdini of the OFS  _ Lambiel _ , Orion Federation.  We are drifting without engines and require towing.  End transmission.” Though Yuuri heard it in Yamadan, the words coming out of Celestino’s mouth were Palerman - and if the other ship had no translation software, that’s what they would hear.

“Sent.”  Phichit shifted in his chair and leaned over his console, eyes not leaving the screen.

Yuuri’s hands shook on the controls.  The frigates had maneuvered to surround the  _ Lambiel _ , and now flew in formation with it.  It looked like an escort. Yuuri knew one wrong move would get them blasted to pieces.  

“Incoming message,” said Phichit.  That voice again, sounding even angrier than the last time.  The message ended, and everyone looked at their captain.

Celestino was scowling out the viewport.  “White Flag Protocol, everyone,” he said after a moment, his tone defeated.

Prepare to be boarded.  

The bridge was silent as the crew carried out the command, shutting down all non-critical systems.  Yuuri did his best to bring the ship to a halt, but without the forward thrusters functional there was little he could do to stop their forward momentum.

Hopefully, whoever was out there would recognize that the absence of the engines’ glow indicated they were complying as best they were able.

Even as they worked, the  _ Lambiel _ shuddered as it was caught in the strange flagship’s tractor beam.  The flagship grew relentlessly larger in the viewport as the smaller ship was drawn inexorably towards its hangar bay.  Eventually, movement on the bridge stilled as the last task was completed, and the crew glanced at each other tensely.

Celestino was staring at the approaching hulk of the flagship, which now filled the entire viewport.  The ship’s guns were swivelling to follow the  _ Lambiel  _ as it was pulled in.  A muscle in his jaw twitched.  “Bridge crew to the airlock,” he said finally.

The crew abandoned their stations and followed their captain to the airlock.  At his direction, they kneeled in a line with their hands behind their heads, sidearms placed on the ground in front of them.  Celestino himself remained standing, and even with his hands behind his head he retained an aura of authority.

There was another shudder as the  _ Lambiel  _ landed in the hangar, and Yuuri felt lightheaded for a moment before the flagship’s gravity generators took over for those of the smaller ship. 

There was a faint hiss as pressures equalized.  Yuuri heard the  _ Lambiel _ ’s outer door open, and the clatter of many boots hitting the floor of the airlock.  The outer door closed again.

Yuuri forced himself to breathe out.

The inner door opened, and helmeted soldiers poured in, guns bristling.  The soldiers swarmed around the perimeter of the room until the bridge crew was surrounded, at least one gun trained on every member of the crew.  They were outfitted in exosuits, streamlined and military. Their helmets’ visors were dark, and Yuuri could only guess what lay behind them.

But they were human-shaped, so there was that, at least.

Another soldier with a patch on their shoulder stepped in.  The door shut behind them, and they looked slowly around the room.  The figure then nodded slightly and stepped toward Celestino.

The words that came out of the helmet’s vocoder were no more intelligible than any of the messages had been.  

Yuuri saw Celestino’s shoulders tense.  “Celestino Cialdini, OFS  _ Lambiel _ , Orion Federation,” the captain said.

There was a pause.  The leader spoke again, and though Yuuri was hardly a linguist, they sounded like the same words as before, but with a slight rising intonation, less an order than a question.

“Celestino Cialdini, OFS  _ Lambiel _ , Orion Federation,” the captain said again, his own voice less sure.

The leader settled back on their heels, looking over the assembled group.  Yuuri thought he could feel their eyes on him, but of course he couldn’t see them.  Finally the leader half turned towards one of the soldiers and barked out an order.

The soldier grunted a single-word reply, and stepped forward.  Through a shouted order and the gestures of an upturned hand, the crew of the  _ Lambiel _ were instructed to stand.  The guns of the soldiers followed them.  More orders, more gestures, and they were marched out of their own ship and onto an unknown ship.

The hangar bay he was being marched through was a cavernous size, echoes of machinery clanking and workers shouting reverberating through the air.  Between the rows of soldiers surrounding them on either side, Yuuri could see small angular craft that looked like fighters, and larger, boxy ships that looked like landing craft.  It looked like every hangar bay he had ever seen.

Including the very  _ human  _ workers.

More soldiers with more guns pounded past them in the opposite direction.  Yuuri twisted his head, and caught a glimpse of them entering the  _ Lambiel  _ before the soldier next to him shoved him with the butt of his rifle.  Yuuri thought of Yuuko in the secondary command center, all the people in engineering and at their turrets, and wondered what was about to happen to them.

He wondered what was about to happen to  _ him _ .

~*~

Yuuri’s cell was gray and nondescript, the furniture molded out of the floor and walls.  One bed, with no pillow or blanket. One sink, one toilet. Six paces from one side to the other.  Zero ways out.

Not that escaping would do Yuuri any good.  He glanced at the door, or at least where the door had been when he had been brought in.  Now it was a featureless wall, with no seams visible to even hint at its presence. Beyond it were armed guards and thousands of soldiers he could never hope to get past, and beyond that were a broken ship and thousands of lightyears of unmapped space.

He had done an abbreviated version of his daily workout, hindered by the lack of his usual equipment, but it was too different from his normal routine to bring the same sort of mindless peace.  Now he sat on his bed and tried to meditate, for what little good it did him.

There was the smallest of sounds, and he opened his eyes.  A dark seam had opened in the wall, and the door slid open.  Two men stood in the opening. The man with two-toned, fluffy hair in back was armed with a rifle, but the one in front had only a small pistol still holstered at his side.  The one in front may have been less immediately dangerous, but Yuuri couldn’t take his eyes off him.

He was a human, with light eyes and even lighter hair, almost silver.  In any other situation, Yuuri would have found the fine bones of his face, the high cheekbones and the strong nose attractive.  At the moment, however, he was more struck by the feeling that he had seen this man before.

The man’s eyes widened for a moment before his face slackened into an expressionless mask.  He stepped into the cell with Yuuri.

The other man said something that sounded inquisitive.  The silver-haired man replied sharply, not removing his eyes from Yuuri’s face.  The man replied equally sharply, and with something like a bitter smile backed away and left the two alone.

The door shut behind the silver-haired man.  Yuuri hadn’t moved from the bed, and just stared up at the man.  This was the leader of the soldiers who had captured them, he decided.  He hadn’t been able to see his face then, but there was something about the way he moved, maybe, that was familiar to him.

The man hadn’t spoken, and seemed to be studying Yuuri equally closely.  Finally he lifted his chin and looked down his nose at him. “Dazeh moy be frabetnybish de?”  The words were cold, and Yuuri didn’t understand.

Yuuri’s brow furrowed.  Was he expected to respond to this somehow?  

The man paused, and when Yuuri said nothing he smirked.  He looked away, as if the far wall was more interesting than Yuuri.  “Ozu, buyut kav lin ilybet alenyko sa.” He paced the few steps it took to reach the other side of the small room.  He spoke again, the foreign words sounding light, but tension in his jaw saying otherwise.

Yuuri struggled not to frown.  The words washed over him, and the implant failed to miraculously begin translating.

His lack of comprehension didn’t seem to bother the other man.  More words poured out of him, and he began to pace. Occasionally he would pause, glance at Yuuri, and shake his head when he received no response.

Finally he stopped and faced a wall.  For many long moments he stood there, saying nothing, but growing steadily more tense.  Suddenly he looked back at Yuuri, a deep furrow between his brows. “Moy be buyut nabny de?”

Yuuri couldn’t even nod or shake his head.  The man’s ice-blue ice bored into his. 

The man drew in a breath; straightened, and the mask descended again.  “Plekren, ogashtoy,” he said, and the door swished open. The fluffy-haired man stood beyond.

The fluffy-haired man asked a question, but the silver-haired man didn’t answer, just swept out of Yuuri’s cell.  The fluffy-haired man glanced at Yuuri before following. The door shut behind them, and Yuuri was alone once again.

Yuuri slumped from the lotus position he had been holding so tightly.  He no longer felt any fear, too overwhelmed by confusion and, inexplicably, loneliness.

 


	3. Chapter 3

An ear-piercing alarm sounded as the lights switched on, painting the insides of Yuuri’s eyelids red.  He hadn’t been asleep, but allowed himself a groan anyway before levering himself out of bed. It was not his cell on the ship, but looked much like it.

He had been in a foreign military prison for three days, and he knew the morning routine by now.

Mechanically he relieved himself and washed, not looking at the camera pointed at him in the corner of the room.  There was no mirror, but he was sure he looked awful. 

He waited patiently.  Another alarm went off, and the door swished open.  He stepped through to see his fellow crewmembers of the  _ Lambiel  _ doing the same, each emerging from their own cells.  As a mass they shuffled, somewhat sleepily, to the cafeteria and its promise of breakfast.  Guards with rifles watched them every step of the way.

After grabbing a tray loaded with unappetizing food that was ejected from a slot in the wall, Yuuri wove his way through the prisoners to the table the bridge crew had commandeered the first day they had been allowed to gather.  Yuuko had joined them, as the  _ Lambiel _ ’s highest-ranking officer.

Highest-ranking, because Celestino was nowhere to be found.

Yuuri slid onto the metal bench, muttered something unintelligible in response to Phichit’s greeting, and shoved a spoonful of something or another in his mouth.  

The conversation flowed around him unheard.  He chewed, tasted nothing, and felt the same hopelessness he had felt for days.  He had spent his nights plagued by dreams of him crying out desperately to a shadowed figure, only to be ignored.  His reality was filled with faceless armed guards he could not communicate with. He felt - 

Betrayed?

Yuuri blinked.  Betrayed by who?  Celestino? Yuuri was the one who had - 

Ah.  Right.  Yuuri put the spoon down, the food suddenly disgusting.  Yuuri was the betrayer. Had betrayed the crew by destroying the ship and landing them in prison.  

He heard the voices of his friends around him.  His friends, who he didn’t deserve to share a table with.  He felt bile rise and swallowed it down.

“So what were the results?” Seung-gil was saying.

“There’s not a single non-crewmember here,” said Yuuko.  “If there were any native prisoners here, they were moved out before we got here.”

“Interesting.”  Seung-gil sat back.

“So, what, they want to keep our existence a secret?” said Phichit.

“I’d be surprised if they didn’t,” said Isabella.  “If the Federation had people from another -” She cut herself off and glanced behind her, though there was nothing there but a wall.

“The guards can’t understand us anyway,” said Phichit.

“Right,” said Isabella, though her face was still worried.  “Anyway, this is exactly the sort of thing any government would keep locked up tight, if they could.”

“If they could,” Seung-gil repeated, and leaned forward.  “Do you think it’s possible anyone else -”

The ambient chatter of the cafeteria crowd had increased in volume, and over the heads of his friends Yuuri could see the large doors to the room opening.    He stood up, but so did everyone else, and he still couldn’t see -

“Captain!”

Yuuri didn’t know who first shouted it, but soon everyone was, becoming a joyous roar.  The bridge crew began to push their way through the crowd, and Yuuri heard that familiar, long-missed voice assuring everyone he was fine.

Finally Celestino was in view, and he  _ looked _ fine - a bit haggard, but fine.  “Nishigori!” he exclaimed, and reached out to clap her on the shoulder.  “Everyone behaving?”

“Well enough,” said Yuuko, smiling brightly.  “You behaving?”

“I’ve been a model prisoner,” said Celestino, and everyone sobered a bit.  He looked out over the assembled crew.

“I’ve been speaking with the authorities here,” he said, voice raised, the crowd quieted.  “Their language isn’t in our translator implants, and they can’t understand any of us, either.  We’ve been building up a basic vocabulary, and I’ve been trying to tell them the truth, mostly through terrible drawings.”  This drew some chuckles. “I’ll teach you what I know so far, and I expect they’ll want to talk more with me. Be on your best behavior, everyone.  We can weather this.”

The crew gradually returned to their breakfasts after assuring themselves their captain was safe.  Eventually only the senior officers remained. “Any orders?” Yuuko asked in a low voice.

Celestino shrugged and didn’t quite look at them.  “Stay alive,” he said. “Cooperate with them as best you can.  Improved communication can only help us at this point.”

“So no escape attempts,” said Isabella.

Celestino shook his head.  “Where would we go?”

Yuuri looked over at a nearby guard.  The helmet completely obscured his face.  Yuuri imagined that he was watching them closely.  “And if they start...mistreating us?”

Celestino smiled grimly.  “I’ll come up with something.”  He shook his head again and headed off to speak with someone else.

“So we’re fucked,” said Seung-gil flatly, once he was out of earshot.

“Basically,” said Yuuri.

Isabella barely stifled a groan.  “We’re not fucked yet,” she said. “We’re alive.  That’s more than some people can say.”

“They can’t say anything, because they’re dead,” Phichit muttered darkly.  Yuuri wondered if he had known anyone on the  _ Lipinski _ , and inched closer to the man.  Phichit inched away. Yuuri let him be.

“She’s right,” said Yuuko, and smiled weakly.  “We’ve got people waiting for us. We can’t give up yet.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” asked Yuuri, and it came out sounding more irritated than he had intended.  But no more irritated than he felt, however misplaced. He looked at his feet.

“We watch, we listen, and we wait,” said Isabella.  “I’ve been trying to talk to the guards. If we can get even a basic common vocabulary going, we might make some progress.”

Seung-gil just hummed, his gaze elsewhere.  

Phichit shrugged.  “Well, it’s something to do.”  He smiled brightly, but it was unconvincing.  “No one can resist my charm!”

“Not even me,” said Yuuri, taking the bait.

Phichit threw an arm around his shoulder.  “You’re my greatest conquest!” His grip was tighter than necessary, and Yuuri mirrored the gesture.  

_ Listen. _

“Huh?”  Yuuri twisted around.  There was no one behind him.  He turned back to his friends; the topic of conversation had changed already, and nobody seemed to have heard that quiet voice.  He shook his head, feeling unbalanced.

Phichit still hadn’t let go.  Yuuri watched his friend struggle to be cheerful, and squeezed his shoulder.  Phichit shot him a smile that seemed more real than anything he had seen on his face for days.

His friends didn’t blame him for getting them into this mess, even if maybe they should.  Celestino was alive and healthy. For the first time Yuuri felt something that resembled hope.

~*~

So they watched, and they listened, and they waited.

“I think I’m making some progress with one of the guards,” said Isabella, some time later.  They were gathered around a table, poking at the tasteless glop that passed for food. “She’s been willing to teach me a few words, like ‘food’ or ‘door.’”

“So now you can understand ‘go to the door’ instead of just ‘go’?” Phichit said.

Isabella laughed.  “Yeah, that’s pretty much the extent of it.  Still, it’s something.”

“It’s something,” Phichit echoed.

Yuuri pushed his food around on his plate.  He hadn’t done anything nearly as useful. Worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong didn’t help anyone, but it was difficult to stop.

“This would be much easier if we could just exchange our translation implant data,” said Seung-gil.

“Oh!” said Phichit.  “That reminds me - Yuuko, you said you thought they don’t even have translation software?”

Yuuko was leaning her head on one hand and staring dreamily off into space.  She didn’t answer.

Yuuri leaned over.  He couldn’t parse the expression on her face.  “Yuuko?”

Yuuko started.  “Sorry, what?”

“Are you all right?” Yuuri asked.

“You were a million miles away there,” Phichit added.

She smiled sadly.  “Just...thinking about my girls.”

Yuuri winced.  “Well, don’t let us interrupt you.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, shaking her head.  “It’s just so...easy to imagine what they’re doing sometimes.”

“And what are they doing now?” Isabella asked hesitantly.

Yuuko’s smile became a little less sad.  “Eating dinner, and complaining about it.”

Yuuri surprised himself by laughing.  “That does sound like them.”

“Axel hates tomatoes, Lutz loves tomatoes but hates onions, and Loop won’t eat meat and pasta in the same dish,” Yuuko went on.  “And it changes from month to month.” She shook her head. “It’s a nightmare trying to find something they’ll all eat.”

“I don’t envy Takeshi right now,” Yuuri said.

Yuuko looked away.  “Yeah.”

Another sore spot.  Yuuri bit his lip. “You’ll get back to them,” he said.

Yuuko smiled tightly, then nodded.  “Yeah, I will.” She looked around the table.  “We all will. Celestino and I will make sure of that.”

“And we’ll try not to fuck it up too much,” said Yuuri with a small smile.

Phichit snickered.  “Yuuri, you’d be the last one to -”

There was a shout behind them, and everyone turned.  Yuuri could see two bodies on the floor for a moment before a crowd began to gather.  

Yuuri stood, and followed in Yuuko’s wake as she pushed her way through the crowd.  They arrived in time to see a chair clatter to the floor, victim of a wild kick by one of the two men wrestling and shouting invectives at each other.

“Jackson, Mendez, break it up!” Yuuko barked.

That distracted one of the men long enough for the other to get a solid punch in; then Yuuko was hauling him up and pulling him away.  The crowd parted, and Celestino arrived in time to get a hold of the other man.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Celestino shouted.

“Sorry, sir,” said the one Celestino was holding - Mendez, Yuuri thought - and to his credit, the man looked contrite.  

“That’s not -” Celestino began.

The sudden silence of the onlookers announced the arrival of the guards.  They swept in, the black-clad figures with their black guns dispersing bystanders with merely a look.  Within moments they had Celestino, Yuuko and the fighters surrounded.

There was an exchange between Celestino and one of the guards, a combination of gestures and words that Yuuri couldn’t follow.  The guards handcuffed the two men’s hands behind their backs, and Celestino’s face grew steadily more tense.

Abruptly the guard turned away from Celestino, conversation ended.  Celestino shouted something, but he was ignored. The two crewmen were led away, Jackson needing to be shoved hard enough that he stumbled before he started moving.  The crowd backed away nervously from the guards’ advance.

“Best behavior, boys!” Celestino shouted after them as they were marched out of the room.  The heavy metal doors closed behind them.

The room was hushed.  Celestino was still staring at the doors, breathing hard.  He seemed to compose himself. “I’ll talk to the guards,” he told the assembled crew.  He opened his mouth as if to say something else, then just frowned and strode off, presumably to do just that.

Yuuri let out a shaky breath.  No one said anything, but they were doubtless all wondering the same things.  Unbidden, images sprung into his mind of torture chambers and inhuman experiments.  He wanted to discount the idea, but they knew next to nothing about their captors.

_ Are you all right? _

Yuuri realized he was trembling.  “I’m fine,” he said. He breathed in deeply.  Or, he would be fine.

“What?” said Phichit.

Yuuri turned to his friend.  Phichit’s eyebrows were raised.  “What?”

“You just said…”  Phichit shook his head.  “Never mind.” He looked away, frowning.

Yuuri frowned himself.  Had Phichit not been the one to ask…?  But Isabella was staring off into the distance, Yuuko had followed Celestino, and Seung-gil had gone back to his food like nothing had happened.

Well.  Whatever was bothering Phichit, he wouldn’t pry.

~*~

Jackson and Mendez didn’t come back the next day, nor the next.

“Has Celestino made any progress?” Yuuri asked, leaning forward.  Their small group was gathered around a table once more, but now they put their heads together and spoke quietly.  Many of the other tables looked the same.

Yuuko shook her head.  “We don’t have the vocabulary to even ask the right questions,” she said.  “He says they don’t seem very interested in answering, anyway.”

“I don’t think we need to start worrying yet,” said Seung-gil, frowning.  “If we were back on the ship, they’d get extra duties at the very least. They’re probably in solitary or something.”

“Probably,” said Yuuri, and willed the worried voices in his head to quiet.  They didn’t.

“They’re both assholes anyway,” added Phichit with a grin that seemed forced.  “They could stand some punishment.”

Isabella hummed in agreement.  “Did I ever tell you about how Jackson used to harass Ensign Graham?  In Engineering.”

“What?  No, I haven’t heard this,” said Yuuko.

“Yeah, it was grade school stuff like knocking her things off the table, snatching tools out of her hands as she was using them,” said Isabella.  “Eventually it got to the point that...uh, Graham finally - um.” Isabella trailed off.

When Isabella didn’t continue, Yuuri shared a worried look with Yuuko.  “Isabella?” he said.

Isabella blinked, then shook her head.  “Sorry, lost my train of thought.”

“Jackson and Mendez,” Yuuri prompted.

“Right,” said Isabella, and nodded.  “They were a ticking timebomb, really.”  Her eyes unfocused, and her attention seemed to drift away again.

Yuuri glanced back at Yuuko, but she was looking at something over Yuuri’s shoulder.  “What’s going on?” she asked, brows furrowed.

Yuuri turned.  Two guards were making their way through the room, on a beeline for their table.

“Shit,” said Phichit.

Yuuri looked at his friend.  “Did you do something?”

Phichit shook his head.  “Did you?”

The other faces around the table looked equally bewildered.  As one they turned to watch the guards, and Yuuri’s heart grew heavier and heavier as they approached.

They stopped at their table, and Yuuri felt like passing out.  He looked to Yuuko. If Celestino’s negotiations weren’t going well enough, then the next logical choice would be - 

But one of the guards was motioning at Yuuri.  “What?” he said, not moving.

The guard gestured again.  At Yuuri. 

What had he done?  Slowly he stood up.  The guard waved a hand.  “Dovik,” he said.  _ Come. _

He’d fucked up.  He didn’t know how, but he’d fucked up.  The guards led him away, and he didn’t allow himself to look back at his friends, afraid of what he’d see on their faces.

_ Stay calm _ , said someone behind him. Yes, he supposed he should be calm, that panic would do nothing to improve his situation, but worries pounded relentlessly at his mind - what had he done wrong, were they going to hurt him, would he be able to withstand torture - and no number of deep breaths would slow the rabbit-fast beating of his heart.

The door closed behind them, and Yuuri found himself in a wide hallway with a T-intersection directly ahead.  Without really thinking about it, Yuuri oriented himself for a left turn - before the guards made any indication which way they were going.  Then the guards turned left, and Yuuri stumbled a bit when he realized what he had done. Perhaps the spartan gray walls had him falling into some old habit from military school.

But it kept happening.  His body seemed to know every twist and turn before it happened. By the time they stopped in front of an unassuming door he was close to hyperventilating.  Had he somehow been here before? What had he forgotten?

The door opened; he was pushed in, and the door clicked shut behind him.

The room was small, and contained a table, two chairs, and a man.  The man was dressed as a guard, but underneath that faceless helmet Yuuri knew - he  _ knew  _ -

The man removed the helmet, and familiar blue eyes gazed at Yuuri from beneath a mop of silver hair.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter trigger warning: Depiction of a panic attack; will be surrounded with ((TW BEGIN)) and ((TW END))

“Yavet doya.”  The silver-haired man smiled tightly, and gestured at one of the chairs.  “Suvik priyat.”

Yuuri froze.  The man who had captured them, the man who had shown up in his cell, who had ranted at him incomprehensibly before storming out...here was the man he thought he would never see again, greeting him politely.

The man patted the back of the chair, saying “Suvik” again, and after a moment of indecision Yuuri took a step forward.  Aside from a small twitch of his lips, the man didn’t move. Hesitantly Yuuri sat down in the chair opposite the other man.  The silver-haired man took a seat as well, slowly, as if to calm a frightened animal. Yuuri supposed that described him fairly accurately.

What was he doing here?  Yuuri watched him place the guard’s helmet on the table.  Yuuri had thought he was a naval officer. Had the crew of the foreign ship been reassigned as guards?  He had never heard of anything like that happening in the Federation.

But the arrival of a ship through a black hole was also unprecedented.  Perhaps the fewer people who knew of their presence, the better.

The other man had said nothing, seemingly content to let Yuuri think.  Now he touched a hand to his own chest. “Moy bov Victor en,” he said, carefully enunciating each word.  He patted his chest once. “Victor.” He then slowly extended his open hand toward Yuuri. “Ru bov…?”

Victor.  His name was Victor.  Yuuri gaped for a moment, then touched his own chest.  “Yuuri,” he said slowly.

Victor’s eyes widened, and a smile spread across his face.  “Yuuri,” he said, as if the name held all the secrets of the universe.

That awe-filled face sparked a frisson of joy in Yuuri.  They were communicating. He knew the man’s _name_.

The other man cleared his throat, and seemed to be trying to tamp down his smile.  “Moy bov Victor en,” he said again, his hand on his chest. He held his hand out to Yuuri.  “Ru bov Yuuri en.”

Yuuri thought back to Celestino’s lessons.  He had struggled to make sense of the unfamiliar words, but now that he was talking to a native speaker, things seemed to slot into place.    _I am Victor, you are Yuuri._ “Moy bov Yuuri en,” Yuuri said hesitantly.   _I am Yuuri._

Victor’s grin escaped again, and his elation was contagious.  Yuuri felt himself smiling. “Ru bov Victor en,” he continued, feeling more sure of himself.

“Dyet!” Victor exclaimed happily, and reached out as if to grab Yuuri’s hands.  Yuuri almost let him, but Victor caught himself, and settled for clasping his own hands in front of him.

Yuuri realized abruptly that he had been ready to let the man touch him.  Had been anticipating it, even. What had gotten into him? Why was he so excited?

He looked at Victor’s happy face, at the way enthusiasm practically leaked from his every pore.  Some sort of...social osmosis, then.

Now the question was why _Victor_ was so excited.

_Listen._

Yuuri’s heart jumped into his throat and he whipped his head around.  

There was no one at the door.  No one else in the room other than himself and Victor.

He turned back to the other man, who looked worried.  “Blisk de?” asked Victor.

Yuuri took a breath and straightened his clothes, though they didn’t need straightening.  “I’m fine,” he said.

After a moment Victor nodded as if he had understood.  Behind a calm mask Yuuri corralled his thoughts, lest any of them make their way to his face.  

Meanwhile Victor’s smile was returning.  “Yuuri,” he began.

There was a knock at the door, and Victor’s smile disappeared.  He glanced at the door, then back at Yuuri. “Yuuri,” he said again with an intense look, and put the helmet back on.

The door opened, and one of the other guards came back in.  He looked at Yuuri, then at Victor.

Victor nodded, but said nothing.  The guard nodded back, then gestured at Yuuri to follow.

The halls seemed much more maze-like on the way back.  Yuuri was barely paying attention. What had just happened?  First the man was angry at him, now he was happy to see him? And what was more, _Yuuri_ was happy to see him?  He had no idea what had just happened, but something told him it was important.

The moment Yuuri stepped back into the cafeteria he was surrounded by worried crew.  Once the guards left Phichit took the opportunity to launch himself at him with a cry of his name.  Yuuri accepted the hug tentatively, still confused.

“What happened?” Celestino asked, once he made his way to the front of the mob.

Yuuri swallowed.  “We just...talked.”

Celestino looked skeptical.  “About what? You weren’t gone for long.”

“Just our names, basically.”  Yuuri looked at Celestino, then at Yuuko.  “We didn’t have time for anything else.”

Celestino and Yuuko exchanged a look.  “Nishigori, Katsuki, I need to speak with you,” he said quietly, then louder, to the assembled group, “Give the man some space.”

The crowd reluctantly dispersed.  Celestino strode to the corner table where he normally held office, and Yuuri and Yuuko followed.  Celestino shooed away curious onlookers, and soon an empty space surrounded the table. Apparently satisfied with that level of privacy, Celestino slid into a seat.  Yuuko and Yuuri followed suit.

Celestino stared pensively at the table for a moment before directing his sharp gaze at Yuuri.  “Tell me everything, from the moment you left the room.”

Quietly, mindful of the other crewmembers only meters away, Yuuri told him.  He described the route to the room, Victor’s appearance, their conversation - but not his familiarity with the route, or the voice he heard.  Those weren’t relevant, he told himself. Probably.

When he finished, Celestino didn’t say anything for a long while.  Yuuri stared at his hands, feeling like he was somehow in trouble, though logically he knew he wasn’t.

Finally Celestino sighed.  “For now, this is just between us three, all right?”  At their nods, he continued. “The man you described is not one of the people I’ve been talking to.  It was a single person, not a committee. He asked you no questions, and you were there for less than half an hour.”  He shook his head. “I’ll be honest, I have no idea what’s going on.”

Yuuri pursed his lips and looked to the side.  There was still something he had told no one. It felt...private, but now it seemed he had no choice.  “Um, there’s one more thing.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Celestino’s eyebrow raise. “I’ve met the man before.”

The other eyebrow shot up.  “What? How? When?”

“When we were still in the brig, on the ship.”  Yuuri stared resolutely at a point over Celestino’s shoulder.  “He came into my cell, talked at me a bit - he seemed angry - then left.”

Yuuko’s eyes were wide.  “Yuuri! He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

Yuuri shook his head hurriedly.  “No, no - it was just weird, is all.”

“And why didn’t you report this to me?” Celestino asked.

Yuuri looked away again.  The question he had been dreading.  “It didn’t seem important, I guess.”

Celestino pinched the bridge of his nose.  “I’ll be the judge of what’s important,” he said, and Yuuri nodded.  “From now on, I want you to tell me about every interaction you have with these people, no matter how minor.”

“Yes, sir.”

“For whatever reason, this man seems to have fixated on you.  This could be dangerous, but it could also be an opportunity.”  Celestino leaned forward. “Yuuri. I need you to be careful.”

His given name.  Yuuri winced. “Yes sir.”

Celestino frowned, then looked at Yuuko.  “Nishigori, dismissed.”

Yuuko left with a nod and a concerned glance at Yuuri.  Yuuri barely saw it, staring as he was at the table.

They sat in silence for a few moments before Celestino spoke up again.  “You know I’m not angry with you, right?”

“Yes, sir.”  Despite himself, a corner of his mouth quirked up briefly.  “Just disappointed.”

A faint smile appeared on Celestino’s face.  “That predictable, am I?”

“A bit.”  For a moment his heart lightened, but the feeling quickly dissipated.

“You know what I expect of you,” said Celestino, his face gentle.  “Now you just have to do it.” He smiled. “Dismissed.”

Yuuri stood up.  Well, that dressing-down had not gone nearly as badly as it could have.  He had barely made it back into the general crowd before he was ambushed by the bridge crew, Phichit latching on to him again.

“You okay?” Phichit said into his ear.

“I’m okay,” Yuuri said.

Phichit patted him on the back before letting him go.  Phichit needed physical contact just as much as Yuuri needed personal space.  It was a delicate balance, but they managed it. “So spill the deets, man!” he said, a grin forming on his face.

“Can’t, it’s classified,” replied Yuuri, beginning to smile a bit himself.

Isabella and Phichit groaned in unison.  “Come on, Yuuri!” said Isabella.

Yuuri’s smile widened.  “They dissected me a little bit, but I’m better now.”

Phichit snorted.  “Yuuri, no.”

“But really, I can’t tell you right now.”  Yuuri glanced back at Celestino, who was now talking with someone from Engineering.  

The others followed his gaze.  “Ah,” said Seung-gil.

“Can confirm,” said Yuuko, and mimed zipping her lips shut.

Phichit sighed and shook his head.  “Well, we know you exchanged names with some of these foreign guys.  I guess that’ll have to do for now.”

“Mm,” said Yuuri, neither confirming nor denying.   _Victor_ , that was the man’s name.  He wondered if it was a given name or a surname.

_Yuuri._

“Hm?”  Yuuri blinked.

“I said we saved your lunch for you,” said Seung-gil.  “Though it’s cold by now.”

Yuuri squinted a bit in confusion.  Seung-gil never called him by his given name; he was always ‘Katsuki,’ even during downtime.

Or had that been -?

Yuuri clamped down on that thought before he even finished it.  He couldn’t be hallucinating, not now. Not when so much was at stake.

~*~

That afternoon, at Celestino’s daily lesson, Yuuri redoubled his efforts to learn the language.  Victor had not singled him out just to exchange names. They would meet again, Yuuri was sure of it.  

Celestino leaned forward, his expression serious.  “Kravets bov uleg en de?”

Yuuri scrunched up his face.  Kravets - kravets was - _cup_ \-  He glanced at the array of eating utensils on the table.  “Kravets bov stelt ka pod lin en.” No, that sounded wrong.  “I mean, stelt ka pod lin shkan.”

Celestino grinned and clapped once.  “Wonderful! You’ll catch up with Isabella in no time!”

Yuuri scratched the back of his head.  “I can barely say that a cup is on a plate.  I don’t think that’s going to come up much in conversation.”

“True, but you’re getting the grammar down.  That’s a very important base.”

Grammar, right.  He still didn’t know when to use ‘en’ and when to use ‘shkan’.  But imagining it in Victor’s voice seemed to help, for whatever reason.  “The next things I need to know are how to say ‘black hole,’ ‘ship,’ and ‘accidentally.’”

“I can help you with two of those things.”  Celestino looked a bit sheepish. “I haven’t figured out that last one, yet.”

Yuuri wanted to say something reassuring, but felt that would just come off as condescending.  Instead his gaze drifted off to the rest of the group. Their language class was composed mainly of people in key command positions, though everyone was welcome to listen in.  Isabella, as the quickest learner, had taken over the instruction while Celestino drilled Yuuri one-on-one. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time,” said Yuuri.

Celestino scoffed.  “Nonsense! You’re our next ambassador.  We need to get you up to speed as quickly as possible.  And you’re doing an exemplary job, I might add.”

Yuuri looked down with a quiet “Thanks.”  Ambassador. He was a pilot, not a diplomat.  On his worst days, he could barely even talk to his friends.

Unconsciously his gaze flicked over to Phichit.  The man was speaking animatedly to Seung-gil, whose deceptively impassive face nearly hid the amused look in his eyes.

Seung-gil would probably be an even worse choice, Yuuri had to admit.  But Phichit had a natural charm unmatched by anyone else he knew, Isabella soaked up the language like a sponge, and Yuuko, second-in-command, would be an obvious choice.

But Yuuri had been the one summoned.  Like it or not, now Yuuri had some hope of getting everyone out of this alive.

Celestino was leaning back and looking at him quizzically.  “And what’s going on in that head of yours?” he asked.

Yuuri looked back at his captain, jaw set.  “I’m going to be the best damn ambassador the Federation’s ever seen.”

“That’s what I hoped you’d say,” said Celestino, his grin widening.  He leaned forward and slapped his hands on the table. “Now! For past tense…”

~*~

((TW BEGIN))

_Can you hear me?_

Yuuri shot upright, fragments of a dream slipping away from his waking mind.  His cell was pitch black. “Who’s there?” he called out.

He heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing and his heartbeat in his ears.  He disentangled his legs from his sheets and stumbled out of bed. A blind search of his room revealed no hidden intruder.

“Who’s there?” he called again.

_It’s me._

Those...those were not words.  Those were...thoughts. Thoughts from inside his own head.

Thoughts that did not belong to him.

Yuuri sunk to the ground.  He squeezed his head in his hands.   _No, no, this can’t be happening._

_I’m sorry._

He had tried to ignore it, tried to deny it.  But now, alone in the darkness, he could no longer pretend.

_It’s okay._

No, no, no, it wasn’t okay.  He was trapped in a foreign military prison on the wrong side of a black hole, and now he was hallucinating.

_I’m real._

_No, you’re not_ , Yuuri snapped before he could stop himself.  He sobbed. A vice was squeezing around his heart, and his breath was coming in pants.

_Breathe._

_Shut up!_  Yuuri squeezed his eyes shut, and tears dripped down his face.  The not-voice, the Other, was worrying now, and the Other’s worry and his own panic fed each other in a sick cycle.

Yuuri gasped.  He had to ground himself in the real world.  He couldn’t see. What could he hear? His breathing, the sigh of the cell’s air filtration system, the rustle of cloth -

_Shh.  It’ll be all right._

\- and he definitely did NOT hear that, they were thoughts from his own head.  Even if they didn’t feel like it. He could feel the Other’s sorrow, but shunted it away.

He could feel the cold of the floor against his bare feet, his clothes against his skin, quickly-cooling tears on his face.  Smelled - he sniffed, and snot gurgled in his nose - not much. Tasted the inside of his mouth and tears.

Yuuri let his head rest on his knees.  He sat there for a long time, just breathing, until his heartbeat finally slowed.  His nose was dripping.

“Stupid,” he said out loud, not sure of his insult’s target.  The Other was still there, silent, but watching.

It wasn’t the end of the world, not technically.  All he had to do was ignore the Other, right? Just...ignore it.  Forever.

Sadness, and he didn’t know if was his own or the Other’s.

((TW END))

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW section summary: Yuuri hears a voice while alone, admits to himself that he's been hearing things; voice insists it's real, Yuuri insists it's a hallucination; Yuuri has a panic attack, then vows to ignore the voice


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws chapter at y'all and runs*

“Sirs, have any of you seen Ensign Chen today?”

Yuuri looked up from the remains of his lunch at the woman who had appeared at the end of the bridge crew’s table.  “Sorry, who?”

The woman smiled nervously.  “Ensign Chen Meizhi, Fourth Division, Weapons department.  Short, dark hair and eyes, bit of a chatterbox?”

“Sorry, no,” said Yuuri, shaking his head.  The others at his table offered up their own negatives.

“I haven’t seen her, but I haven’t been looking for her either,” said Seung-gil.  “She was the one who was mouthing off to a guard last night, yes?”

Yuuri’s heart sank even as the woman nodded.  “That’s the one, sir.”

“And you’ve asked around the rest of the department?” Seung-gil continued.

“Yes, sir.”

Seung-gil took one last bite of his meal and stood.  “Come with me,” he said once he had swallowed. “I want to talk to Junior Lieutenant Freeman.”

As the two walked away, Yuuri stared at his food.  The mush had not been appetizing to begin with, but now it was even less so.  “That doesn’t sound good,” he said eventually.

Phichit blew air out of his nose.  “I gotta say, I agree with the pessimist on this one.”

 _Are you all right?_  The Other, sensing his anxiety.

 _I’m fine_ , Yuuri replied automatically, then winced.   _I can’t be doing this right now._ He pictured himself turning away from the Other.  

The Other remained, but said nothing.  At least it was a polite hallucination.  After the panic attack several days ago, it had been mostly quiet.

No, his _brain_ had been quiet.  He couldn’t start thinking like this was another person.

“If the optimist says it’s bad…”  Isabella trailed off and shook her head.  “And Jackson and Mendez’s friends are getting restless.  They keep asking me if I’ve heard anything, and I have nothing to tell them.”

“And the brass have stopped talking with Celestino at all, and they haven’t called me in either,” added Yuuri.  Had he read Victor wrong? While that was definitely a possibility, it didn’t seem likely that Victor had only wanted his name.  Yuuri often found himself analyzing and re-analyzing their every interaction, few though they were, trying to divine the man’s motives.  Nothing quite added up.

Phichit rubbed his hand over his face.  “Yuuko, you’re the XO - maybe you need to make some sort of overture to the guards?  Do they even know you’re XO?”

Yuuko didn’t respond.  She had her head in her hands and was staring blankly at the table.

Yuuri leaned forward.  Now that he was looking, he saw dark circles under her eyes.  “Yuuko? Are you okay?”

Yuuko started, then rubbed her temples.  “I’m fine, just a little migraine,” she said with a small smile, but her face was pinched.

 _No such thing as a_ little _migraine_ , Yuuri thought, but said only, “Would you like to sit somewhere quieter?”

Yuuko shook her head.  “No! Just…” She smiled weakly.  “Don’t expect me to do much talking.”

“Okay, if that’s what you want,” said Yuuri slowly.

“Do you think we could get some painkillers from the guards?” Phichit asked.

“I’m not sure how we’d even ask,” said Yuuri.

Isabella’s eyes were unfocused.  “Khovbal,” she said after a moment.

Yuuri’s eyebrows raised.   _Khov...khov_ was _head_...  “Is that ‘headache’?” he asked.

Isabella nodded, still distant.  “And ‘gruya’ is medicine,” she added after a moment, and her eyes focused once more.

Phichit whistled.  “Where’d you even hear those?”

Isabella chuckled and shifted in her seat.  “Not sure, really.”

“Do you want to go ask, or should I?” asked Yuuri.

“I might as well go.”  Isabella stood up, and the metal chair legs screeched against the floor.

Yuuri winced and glanced at Yuuko, but she seemed to have not even noticed.  She was staring at her hands resting, clenched, on the table.

Isabella grimaced.  “Ugh, sorry about that.  Anyway, be right back!” She headed off toward the nearest guard.

Yuuri sighed deeply and turned his gaze to his meal.  It was tasteless, little more than mush, and was never enough to fill him up.  He scraped the dregs from the side of the bowl with his spoon.

“Where’s the Captain eating today?  Operations?”

Yuuri started.  Seung-gil had reappeared at the table, nearly silently.  “No, he’s with Navigation right now,” said Yuuri. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, in the general direction of where the Navigation crew generally sat.  “I think he was going to eat with Operations tomorrow.”

Seung-gil scanned the room.  “I see.”

“The search for Chen isn’t going well?”

“No.”  Seung-gil walked off.

“Loquacious as always, our Seung-gil,” said Phichit, smiling crookedly.

“There’s not much to say in a situation like this,” said Yuuri quietly.  Seung-gil had reached the captain and was saying something in his ear. Celestino, in the middle of a wild gesticulation, abruptly drew in on himself and stood up.  Yuuri turned away uncomfortably.

“Oh, I can think of a lot to say, but most of it’s not fit for polite company.”  Phichit showed his teeth.

“And when has that ever stopped you?” Yuuri returned easily.

Phichit gasped dramatically.  “Yuuri, you impugn my honor!” He glanced at Yuuko - she was staring into the distance, seemingly unbothered by his outburst - and continued, “A duel at dawn!  It’s the only way to preserve my reputation!”

Yuuri felt himself smiling.  “I accept your challenge,” he said.  “Our weapons will be spoons. Does this suit you?”

“It does indeed, good sir,” said Phichit, with a half-bow over the table.

They continued in this vein for several minutes.  Banter was easy, meaningless and distracting, but not distracting enough for him to ignore the sinking feeling that, as bad as their situation was, things were about to get a whole lot worse.

~*~

Yuuri woke to sweaty sheets, a pounding heart, and a sense of dread.

For a moment he thought he was having another panic attack, but the sudden image of a man yelling and the incongruous thought of _What am I going to do now_ made him roll over and groan.  He was just hallucinating again.

He covered his ears with his hands, though it did nothing but make him more aware of his heartbeat.   _Stop it_ , he told his brain, fruitlessly.  He wished he could turn the lights on, if only to ground himself in reality.

A smothering wave of sadness, anger, fear.   _Not real, not real, not real_.  But the feelings just intensified.  Yuuri curled in on himself. Gray walls, people in uniform - loneliness, despair -

_Please._

Yuuri uncurled a bit, surprised. _Please what?_

The response was wordless, thoughtless, barely even conscious - just a desperate, bone-deep longing for comfort.

That gave Yuuri pause.  He could certainly use some comfort, that was true.  But it was the dead of night, he was alone, and he could hardly comfort himself.

But...he could comfort another person.  And if that other person was also _him_ ….

If Yuuri could trick his own brain into calming down, he would do it.  He just wanted to sleep.

He breathed in and out and forced his face to relax.   _We’re going to be all right_ , he told the Other.  Himself. Both.

He imagined the Other laughing humorlessly.   _Are we?  Are we really?_

 _We will.  I’ll make sure of it._  It was so much easier to be kind to himself when he was pretending he was someone else.

Some of the sadness eased, though it didn’t disappear entirely.  There was a roiling churn of thought and emotion, disconnected from Yuuri, but within reach.  Yuuri lay there for a few moments, waiting.

 _You don’t even think I’m real_ , came the thought, eventually.

 _Well…_ Yuuri rolled over onto his other side.   _You’re chemicals and electrical signals in a brain.  Technically, I suppose you’re just as real as I am._  Though that sent Yuuri on a philosophical train of thought he didn’t want to follow too far.

A weak flare of humor.   _True._  A pause.   _But you’re real too.  Don’t doubt that._

 _Thanks, I guess._  He had kicked off his sheets, but as his sweat rapidly evaporated in the dry air, he was growing chilly.  He pulled the sheet back up to his chin. _I shouldn’t be talking to you,_ he thought, regretfully.

_I’m glad you are._

Yuuri was glad too, he realized.  He was so tired of fighting it.

The light over his bed flicked on, and he reflexively squeezed his eyes shut.  He heard the door to his cell swish open, then the tread of boots and a metallic rattle, as if a cart was being wheeled in.

 _What’s going on?_ the Other asked.

Yuuri didn’t answer.  He didn’t know. He froze for a moment in indecision, then forced himself to relax, feigning sleep.

The cart, or whatever it was, was wheeled next to his bed.  From the sound of it there were at least two people in his room.  

He risked slitting one eye open.  Through his eyelashes he could see a figure approaching him, one arm raised, leaning over him -

Yuuri’s arm shot out and intercepted a hand, eyes now wide open.  The hand was holding a syringe aimed at his neck.

With a twist of his hand Yuuri redirected the syringe into the fleshy, uncovered neck of the man holding it.  The man went down, and Yuuri jumped up.

A shout; the guard was aiming a weapon at him.  Yuuri ducked behind what looked like some sort of gurney.  The guard’s shot went wide.

Yuuri grabbed the gurney’s metal struts and shoved.  The gurney rammed into the guard, forcing his torso horizontal over the gurney.  Yuuri lunged for his gun.

Movement in the doorway, another guard.  There was a flash of light from the guard’s gun, and pain splashed over Yuuri’s shoulder.

_Yuuri!_

The pain radiated throughout his body.  His vision darkened, and it was so _cold_ …

Yuuri felt himself hit the floor, then felt nothing at all.

~*~

Yuuri fought his way back to consciousness.   He cracked open his eyes, but a bright light overhead made him squint them shut again.  He groaned, aching all over.

“Yuuri?”

A swish of leather as someone approached him.  Yuuri tried to get up, but couldn’t move. He jerked his limbs.  His arms, his legs - he was tied down. Yuuri gasped, panic rising.

“Blisk tche, Yuuri, blisk.”  A click, and the restraint on his right arm was removed.  The man - Victor, why was it _Victor_ \-  continued speaking in soothing tones as he moved to his other arm.  Yuuri raised his free hand to his face. What -

Yuuri remembered.

He opened his eyes and shot up.  Victor, leaning over him, _oof_ ed and swayed as they collided.  Yuuri grabbed his arms. “Victor,” he said, voice raw.

“Yuuri,” Victor said.  The man’s eyes were wide, his hair in disarray.  He stroked his hands soothingly over Yuuri’s shoulders.  Soft words were coming out of his mouth, but Yuuri was too addled to even try to understand.

“What -”  Yuuri couldn’t remember the word for ‘what.’  “Where -” He couldn’t remember that, either.

“Yuuri, blisk en tche.”  Victor patted him on the shoulder, then moved to release his legs from their restraints.  

Once he was free, Yuuri swung his legs over the side of the platform he was on.  They were in a mid-sized room filled with monitors and unfamiliar machines and tools.  A zig-zag line scrolled across one of the screens; even as he looked at it, the line’s peaks and troughs spiked.  Yuuri put his hand to his chest, and found his heart beating hard.

This was an operating room.

Bile rose in his throat, but he choked it back down.  Now was not the time.

Another man dressed as a guard was stationed at one of the monitors; now he turned.  A rapidfire stream of that foreign language passed between him and Victor. Yuuri looked back and forth between them, but couldn’t follow the conversation.  Finally the other man nodded and removed his helmet. It was a pale, dark-haired young man with sad eyes. He looked at Yuuri and nodded solemnly. “Yoreg dve.”

Yuuri didn’t know what that meant, so he just nodded back.  Seemingly satisfied with that response, the man began to strip.

Something like a squawk escaped Yuuri’s mouth.  He turned away, sure he was blushing furiously, and tried to ask Victor a question with his eyes alone.

Though Victor’s response contained a few unfamiliar words, the meaning was clear enough - “ _It’s okay, it’s part of the plan._ ”  Yuuri’s study had paid off, it seemed.  He hadn’t even needed to translate that into his own language before understanding it.   _Why does Victor even_ have _a plan?_ Yuuri allowed himself to wonder.

The man stopped once he was in his underclothes.  He placed his uniform in a pile next to his helmet before sitting down on the floor.  “Kotvy pogtoy tche,” he said, sounding weary.

Slowly, Victor drew his gun and stepped forward.  Yuuri tensed where he sat. Victor fiddled with the gun for a moment before kneeling beside the other man.  With his free hand, he gripped the man’s arm. ”Georgi, volodna.”

The other man gripped his arm back.  “Tserya vid, Victor.”

There was a flash from Victor’s gun.  The other man slumped into Victor’s arms; gently he laid him down on the floor.

Yuuri pushed himself off the table and, somewhat shakily, made his way over to the pair.  The man was still breathing; just stunned, then. Victor stared at the man for a moment before sighing and pointing at the pile of clothes on the floor.  “Odezhvik.”

Yuuri didn’t know the word, but it was clearly a command.  Suddenly he understood. He stripped off his own thin prison uniform, not looking at Victor, and pulled on the guard uniform.  Nothing quite fit, but it was enough to pass a cursory inspection.

As Yuuri was tucking his pants into his boots, Victor pulled the other man’s weapon out of its holster and brought it to Yuuri’s attention.  Carefully pointing the gun away from either of them, Victor tapped a small switch on the side of the gun, then pointed to the unconscious man on the floor.  He pointedly flipped the switch, then caught Yuuri’s eye and drew his hand across his neck.

Stun versus kill.  Yuuri reached over and flipped the switch back to stun.  Some of the tension disappeared from Victor’s eyes. Yuuri strapped the belt around his waist and replaced the gun in its holster.

Yuuri finished by settling the helmet over his head.  A heads-up display flashed on the visor. Victor was outlined in bright green, while his unconscious accomplice was outlined in white.  Out of the corner of his eye, Yuuri glimpsed more white outlines. Human forms, laying on the floor behind the operating table.

Victor’s helmet was on now as well.  “Dovik,” he said, ( _Come_ , his brain translated,) and gestured toward the door.

Yuuri hesitated.  He had no idea what was going on.  Was this a rescue? Was Victor some sort of rebel, or secret agent?  Or would he be walking into something even worse?

It didn’t matter, he realized.  There was no scenario he could imagine that was any worse than the situation he was already in.

Victor gestured again, and this time, Yuuri didn’t hesitate.  He followed.


	6. Chapter 6

The operating room opened onto an empty hallway.  Victor paused, looking down both ends of the hall, before turning left and heading off at a fast pace, steps somewhat jerky.

Victor was nervous, Yuuri realized, and it showed.  Yuuri flipped through his mental dictionary for a moment before murmuring, “ _Slow_.”  He wished he knew how to say _calm_.

Victor nodded and drew in a deep breath.  He slowed his pace slightly, and gradually his steps became more smooth and sure.  Yuuri’s heart was pounding, but he watched his own movements as well, not wanting to be the one to give them away.

In the back of his mind Yuuri could feel the Other.  It had been mercifully silent since he had woken up in the operating room, but still buzzed with its own nervous energy.  Now it was drawing in on itself, as if trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Considerate of it, Yuuri mused sardonically.  He couldn’t think of a worse possible time for distractions.

They turned a corner, and two soldiers stood guarding a doorway down the hall.  Yuuri’s throat closed up and he forced himself to ignore them, his focus narrowing to the movement of his feet and Victor next to him.

Left foot, right foot.  Nothing unusual was going on here, he was just walking down a hallway.  Left foot, right foot. He belonged here.  

They walked, and then they were past the soldiers.  Nothing had happened. Yuuri’s breath shuddered out, and Victor’s shoulders relaxed slightly.  They could do this.

But their next test was not so easy:  a security checkpoint. Two guards, more heavily armed than those he had seen before, bracketed a large set of metal doors.  They slowed to a stop, and one of the guards took a step forward. They guard’s hand rose, and he was pointing something at them - 

Yuuri’s hand went to his gun, but Victor just calmly held up his own hand, palm facing inward.  The device in the man’s hand beeped, and Victor lowered his hand. Yuuri let his hand fall away from his gun.

The guards were looking at him, now.  Trying to be casual, and fearing he was failing miserably, Yuuri raised his own hand as Victor had.  The guard paused before scanning him. The device beeped, and Yuuri lowered his hand.

The guard stepped back to his position, helmet still tilted toward Yuuri.  “Segna bov bosshi prucheyek ke?”

Yuuri froze.  He knew _maybe_ one of those words.  How was he supposed to respond to that?

To his immense relief, Victor was the one to reply.  His words were unhurried, almost jovial.

The guard said something that sounded either bored or unconvinced.  He was still looking at Yuuri. Yuuri could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

Finally the man slapped a switch on the wall behind him.  The door slowly slid open. “Ozu, totsevik sa.”

Victor grunted an affirmative and stepped forward, Yuuri quick on his heels.  The guards’ heads turned to watch them as they passed through the doors.

The halls were wider here, their course less meandering.  Footsteps echoed, and Yuuri could hear some sort of mechanical groan in the distance.  They began to pass more soldiers, and Yuuri had to fight himself not to tense up every time.

Victor had picked up the pace again, but this time Yuuri didn’t protest.  He was too keyed up. How long would they have before they discovered his escape?

Several long hallways later they arrived a large gate.  Here there was not only a large contingent of guards, but several people at desks behind protective barriers.  It was to one of these desks that Victor led them, drawing some small object from his pocket as he did so.

He and the woman behind the barrier exchanged a few words before Victor placed the object in a small drawer that popped out from the desk.  The woman retrieved the object from behind the barrier and inserted it into a slot on a small device.

As the woman scanned her computer screen, the Other grew jittery, and Yuuri imagined it hopping from one foot to the other in impatience.  Or was that himself? It was hard to tell the difference, sometimes.

After a wait that seemed interminable, eventually the woman handed the object back, and he and Victor were allowed to pass through the large gate.  They went down a hall filled with sensors and guards, and finally emerged into a hangar.

Yuuri almost laughed in relief.  This was a rescue, after all.  

Victor led him to a small but well-armored ship, and they pounded up the walkway, Victor seemingly just as eager as Yuuri to leave.  At the top of the walkway Yuuri paused. There were two rows of seats along the walls of the ship, enough to hold an entire squad, but they were all empty.  He shook his head and followed Victor down a cramped hallway deeper into the ship.

The cockpit was empty when they entered, and Victor very nearly collapsed into the pilot’s seat.  Awkwardly, Yuuri stood behind him and watched as he brought the ship to life. _This switch, then that switch, then that option on the menu screen_ , he noted to himself, following his motions closely.

Victor’s shoulders hitched, and he slowly pulled up a new menu screen.  He typed in some numbers or letters in some foreign script - Yuuri tried to burn the image into his brain, but doubted he would be able to replicate it - and began to speak.  A voice from the speakers answered, and a short exchange followed, incomprehensible but clearly routine.

Movement in the viewport caught Yuuri’s eye.  The hangar bay door was easing open, and beyond was the darkness of space.  They were on a space station. Of course, Yuuri thought. You couldn’t escape a space station on foot.

The voice over the speaker fell silent, and Victor took the controls.  As Yuuri watched Victor maneuver the ship out of the hangar, he realized that the ship’s basic controls were very similar to what he was used to.  Without being able to read the labels on the control panel or the text on the monitors, he didn’t think he could enter a gravity well or use the FTL drive, but maneuvering in open space?  That he could do.

They passed through the hangar bay doors, and though the vice around Yuuri’s heart loosened a little, the Other was still agitated, pacing restlessly in his mind.  It was distracting; when the Other’s mood mirrored his own, it was easy enough to pretend it wasn’t there, but emotions that felt like they didn’t belong to him were harder to ignore.

They had not made it far from the station when the voice on the speaker returned.  Victor stiffened, but his reply was in that same casual tone he had been using throughout their escape.  Yuuri couldn’t imagine how he managed it.

The voice over the speaker grew sharp.  Yuuri could hear Victor’s breath catch, even through the helmet.  He replied, voice still impossibly calm, but the voice cut him off.

The vice tightened.  Victor and the voice were arguing now, and Yuuri’s anxiety and that of the Other echoed throughout his mind, amplified into something worse than almost anything he had felt before the hallucinations had begun.  The ship flew on, not quite far enough away to activate the FTL drive.

The floor moved beneath his feet.  Yuuri looked at the sensors. The ship had stopped moving, and now it began to move backwards.

They were caught in a tractor beam.

Victor cried out and jabbed a button frantically.  The voice was cut off mid-sentence. He wrestled with the controls, Yuuri leaning anxiously over his shoulder, but even at full speed the ship couldn’t escape the tractor beam.

Victor tugged the helmet off and looked at Yuuri.  His face was flushed, and his hair was damp with sweat.  “Inya presti, revda lin,” he said, sounding wrecked, and though Yuuri didn’t understand the words he recognized it as an apology.

Yuuri’s heart was hammering away, and he felt hot.  He bent over for a moment, overwhelmed. He pulled the helmet off and let it fall to the floor.  He gulped in a few breaths of the cool, dry air of the spaceship before straightening once more.

Victor was gripping the edge of the console, knuckles white, and staring at the sensors.  Yuuri couldn’t read the words, but the image in the rear viewscreen of the station steadily growing larger was enough to tell him that the ship’s engines couldn’t do anything but delay the inevitable.

He stared at the rear viewscreen.  A guttural moan wanted to claw its way out of his chest.  They had gotten so far, but all for nothing. The Other was despairing, smothering his thoughts, and so was he, empty of hope - but somewhere beneath that, something tickled at his mind.

 _I’m sorry_ , said the Other, and the waves of sadness nearly drowned him.  No. No, not now, when he needed to _think_ -

Victor had turned to him again.  “Yuuri,” he began, but Yuuri was shaking his head, barely cognizant of the real world.

This all-consuming blackness - Yuuri needed to get out from under it.  He covered his face with his hands.

“Yuuri!” Victor said again, more urgently.

Tractor beams - something about tractor beams -

A sliver of a memory, a lecture at the military academy.  Then the knowledge burst over Yuuri all at once. An emergency maneuver, but Yuuri figured this qualified.

Yuuri took a steadying breath removed his hands from his face.  He pointed at the cargo bay on the holographic representation of the ship.  “ _Victor, things are inside here?_ ”  Victor nodded, and Yuuri breathed a small sigh of relief.  Then grimaced as he realized he would somehow have to explain his plan.

He paced two steps to the left, then two to the right.  What words, what words…. “ _Things_ _inside here…move out at…_ ”  He pointed at the space station.  Victor stared at him, brow furrowed, and showed zero signs of having understood him.  Yuuri gestured wildly at the space station again. “ _Move out things!”_

Victor’s mouth opened slightly, and his face cleared for a moment before his confusion quickly returned.  “Ulim tse?”

Yuuri growled and scrubbed his hand through his hair.  He couldn’t - he didn’t have the _words_ -  And the Other was vibrating with frustration, and Yuuri pushed it away with a _not now, not_ **_now_ ** _-_

Or he could do it himself.

Yuuri breathed out.  Yes. That was what he was going to do.

He turned to face Victor and turned the words over in his mind before speaking.  “ _Victor, I move ship._ ”  Except that wasn’t clear enough.  Would Victor take that to mean that he can fly ships, in general?  Or would he understand it as Yuuri demanding to take control of this specific ship?  Had he misremembered how to say _move_?  Or maybe he had gotten the grammar all wrong and his words meant nothing?

Victor stared blankly at him for a moment.  Yuuri mimed taking the controls. Victor nodded and slid out of the seat.

Yuuri sat down, deciding to ignore, for now, the strange amount of trust Victor seemed to have in him.  The space station loomed in the viewscreen. They were running out of time.

Quickly he maneuvered the ship so that the cargo bay was pointed at the space station.  His anxiety, ever persistent, insisted that this wasn’t going to work. Yuuri told his anxiety to fuck off and took a deep, shuddering breath.  “Victor.” He pointed at the cargo bay on the hologram. “ _Move_ _out things._ ”  He mimed pressing a button.

Victor’s lips thinned, but he nodded.  He pulled up a menu and scrolled through options, finally landing on what Yuuri assumed were the cargo bay controls.  A text box popped up, clearly a confirmation screen. Victor hit one of the buttons. A larger text box popped up, in red.  Victor hit the button again.

There was a clunk from somewhere behind them.  Yuuri peered at the rear viewscreen. At the moment, he could only see the space station and a sliver of the now-open cargo bay door.  If this worked….

The ship jolted beneath them.  The engines, until now fighting so valiantly but so fruitlessly against the tractor beam, were beginning to win.

In the rear viewscreen, a metallic crate shot out of the cargo bay, caught up in the tractor beam.  The ship jolted again, and another crate flew out.

Yuuri stared at the ship’s readouts, incomprehensible though they were.  Just a little more….

A cloud of metallic specks flew out of the cargo bay - loose tools, Yuuri realized.  The ship jolted, and again, and again, as the tractor beam automatically targeted each individual tool, and simultaneously lost that much more of a hold on their ship.

Their ship stopped, then moved forward.  Yuuri shouted, “ _Victor, FTL drive_ , now!”

His last word had been in Yamadan, but Victor understood anyway.  He reached over Yuuri’s shoulder and did something with the controls.  Stars turned into lines, and then the entire viewscreen was bathed in white.

Yuuri wasn’t done yet.  He watched the system map, tracking the nav computer’s projection of their ship’s location.  They were heading along the orbital plane towards nothing in particular. All they needed was a few seconds.

“ _Victor, FTL drive no_ ,” Yuuri said, hoping he would catch his drift.

Victor did.  Still leaning over Yuuri’s shoulder, he disengaged the FTL drive, and Yuuri watched closely.  Blinding light reverted to a field of stars, and Yuuri nodded. He knew how to do this now.

Yuuri twisted the ship around, pointing it in a direction his brain insisted was “up,” regardless of how meaningless the word was in space.  Carefully he replicated Victor’s actions with the FTL drive. He took the ship in several short, in-system jumps, changing direction every time, until they floated a good distance from the orbital plane, far from any identifiable feature.

Yuuri realized that he was breathing in short gasps.  He forced a slow breath in and out. “That should keep them busy for a while,” he said, forgetting for a moment that Victor couldn’t understand him, and slumped in his chair, exhausted.

“Yuuri!”  Victor’s voice was awed.  Yuuri turned his head just far enough to see the other man’s face.  Victor was looking at him with an open-mouthed smile. “Yuuri, zamechekkoy!”  He clapped his hands together once and leaned forward.

 _Yuuri, I need to tell you something._   Yuuri huffed in frustration.  Not the Other again, not while he was in the middle of a conversation.  

Unwarranted excitement danced across Yuuri’s mind.  He rubbed his temples. _Not me, not me._

 _You’re right.  It’s not you, it’s me._   The Other seemed almost giddy.

“Moy en,” said Victor - the simplest sentence possible, _I am._

Victor was what?  “Um,” said Yuuri, struggling to separate the two simultaneous conversations.

 _I’m Victor_ , said the Other.

“Moy bov Victor en,” said Victor - _I am Victor._

“What?” said Yuuri.  Yes, Victor was his name, they had established this.  “Um, moy bov Yuuri en.” Had Victor forgotten they had already introduced themselves?  But no, Victor had been calling him by name this whole time.

 _Yuuri, it’s me, it’s Victor_.

 _Be QUIET_ , Yuuri snarled at himself.  He couldn’t concentrate like this.

Victor was frowning now.  Had Victor said something while Yuuri was busy hallucinating?  He couldn’t remember.

_Yuuri, please listen to me._

“Yuuri,” said Victor again.

Yuuri covered his ears with his hands and bowed his head.  This was too much, he couldn’t - he couldn’t -

The cockpit fell silent.  Yuuri breathed in and out a few times before looking back up.  Victor was watching him thoughtfully.

 _Yuuri, you flew the ship_ , said the Other.

 _Ignore it_ , Yuuri told himself.

“Yuuri, ru bov chekorab be rekhyatoy,” said Victor, enunciating his words carefully.

Yuuri bit his lip.  That was - the _toy_ ending meant -

“ _You moved the ship_ ,” Victor had said.

Yuuri stopped breathing.  He stared at Victor.

 _You are Yuuri_ , the Other said.

“ _You are Yuuri_ ,” Victor said.

 _I am Victor_ , the Other said.

“ _I am Victor_ ,” Victor said.

Yuuri’s back hit the wall of the cockpit.  He didn’t remember standing up.

“Yuuri?”  Victor was reaching out to him.

Yuuri fled.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr at http://pleaseexcusemyderp.tumblr.com/ if for some reason you want to look at the stupid stuff I reblog


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